The Portland Sustainability Institute, a nonprofit established by City Council in 2009, developed a method to help communities and professionals plan eco-districts. The intent is to broaden Portland’s reputation for sustainable planning and design via creation of an eco-district approach that will be both scalable and replicable for use in other communities.

A project by nonprofit Human Solutions to build a transit-oriented, affordable housing project in the Gateway area of Northeast Portland had fizzled in the past. But now it has financial backing from state and federal tax credits, private foundations and a helping of urban renewal dollars.

The area of Portland east of Interstate 205 is a historically park-deficient area. The city has a growing number of vacant parcels there pegged for park use, as well as several completed park master plans, but not many of those plans have translated into actual parks.

A city of Portland promise of $198,110 per year for a planned bike park and recreational area near the Gateway area is giving the project the sure footing to move forward. The funding would pay for maintenance and operation, which project organizers say is the chief hurdle in getting the park completed.

Development in the Gateway area in east Portland is being inhibited because the neighborhood lacks any sort of “wow” feature, according to Metro. But that doesn’t matter much, residents say, because the discontinuous streets there likely would not even lead to such a feature.